Anything Goes At Phoenix's Mutant Piñata Show During Art Detour

Every year, the Mutant Piñata Show has about 100 entries. Here are a few from teenagers. By the time the show opens, every piece will have its own, special spot in the gallery, which will transform into a colorful, community-created crazy quilt.

When we’re little kids, we’re celebrated artists. Our drawings decorate the fridge at home and hang on the wall at school. But for most of us, the older we get, the less opportunity there is to make art — let alone have it appreciated by others.

For the last decade, the Mutant Piñata Show has been trying to change that. Its parameters are simple: Make a piñata. Drop it off.

Every year, about 100 people do. And all their work is shown during Phoenix's annual Art Detour event in the downtown area.

On a recent afternoon a few weeks before the show, a small group of folks worked away on their masterpieces on a Grand Avenue sidewalk. A teenage girl kept adding cute details to a chicken with feathers made from red tickets and a beak cut from a La Croix box. A little boy proudly glopped paint on a green sphere that was supposed to be an alien.

Just like the piñata show, the annual get-together is free, open to everyone, and devoid of rules. Cindy Krogh, a regular, said all kinds of people take part.

“From toddlers making things,” she said, “I’ve seen people who are probably in their 80s, 90s come down here and just make things. No one has to be an 'artist.'”

Krogh said she’s not, and in her everyday life has a serious, delicate job training people in the hospice field. But, one day a year, she gets to rifle through boxes of yarn, retired baby dolls and finger paints, and let all the random material guide her piñata process.

This time, she crafted a red ball, with yellow googly eyes and orange feathers shaped into a rooster-like tail — a “rabbit-bird,” Krogh called it.

“I think sometimes adults forget how to play,” she said, “and this is playing.”

It’s that way for many professional artists in the show, too. If you’ve been in the last few years, you’ve definitely seen Andy Gordon’s big, breath-taking, bug-like pieces.

And you would never know he had to teach himself how to work in paper-mache in order to create them.

In his spacious, barn-like studio, he gave demonstration, mixing up a thin slurry for dipping strips of newspaper.

“The secret ingredient? We call it flour,” he joked.

A few curling, geometric shapes were starting to come to life on his work table, but Gordon was still unsure of what he was making. All he knew was that, in the end, it would likely take him hundreds of painstaking hours to complete.

He thinks it’s fun that it will likely get hung next to a quick, unselfconscious piece made by a child.

“So I love being in a show like that,” he said. “I’d rather be in a show like that.”

“Some have something to say in a big way, and some have just small things to say, but are just as intricate and say just as big of a statement.”— Julia Ludders

The same goes for his girlfriend, Julia Ludders, who described the show like a wonderland, with an explosion of piñatas perched on tables, sitting on the floor and floating at different heights.

“Some have something to say in a big way, and some have just small things to say, but are just as intricate and say just as big of a statement,” she said. “It’s really — I love that show.”

One of the joys of the Mutant Piñata Show is seeing people react to it, while it was still taking shape at its home in a studio space off Grand Avenue.

A Valley art teacher, there to drop off her students’ work, gasped with delight at a toothy, crocodile-like creature with eyes in the back of its throat.

“Oh! Beetlejuice!” she said, with a surprised smile.

It was hanging next to a mermaid — in an intimate embrace with an octopus. Show founder Beatrice Moore was still looking for just the right spot to place the evil bunny and the seahorse-butterfly.

(Photo by Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

In "Forbidden Love," a mermaid (who looks to be married), embraces an octopus.

Moore said she’s always surprised by what people bring her.

“Every single year, it’s new ideas,” she said.

And sometimes, that can be daunting, Moore admitted, especially when she’s faced with a pile of new ideas that she somehow has to fit together.

“But once you put everything in its place, and then people can walk in, and they can sort of walk around each little piñata see it as a unique, individual thing, but also as a cohesive whole, with all of them hanging together,” she said, “it just — it works every year.”

And that magic, along with a lot of paper-mache, keeps the show going.

The 11th Annual Mutant Piñata Show is at Weird Garden, 1008 N. 15th Avenue, from 6 to 10 p.m. on Friday, March 16, as well as from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, March 17-18, as part of the multi-venue art celebration Art Detour. The Bergamot Institute will hold a piñata-making workshop at Weird Garden from 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 17. You find out about all the events associated with Art Detour at www.artdetour.com. The Mutant Piñata Show will also run from 6 to 10 p.m. on Friday, April 7, as part of First Friday.

Felipe Valdivia tries his hand at his first piñata, which he calls a "baby bunny dragon." The little guy is named Sebastien and is based off art by Valdivia's friend, Sebastien Million. You can try making your own piñata, too, from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday.(Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

Every year the entries into the Mutant Piñata Show run the gamut - big and small, intricate and simple, rustic and polished to the hilt. This is what the show looked when it was still taking form, with dozens of pieces yet to be placed and hung.(Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

Gordon, a professional artist, loves that this show gives him a nudge to create outside his comfort zone. When this was taken, he still had no idea what his entry would be, but knew he'd figure it out through hours of sanding, painting and exploring.(Photo by Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

Amelie Satterly, 14, shows off her chicken piñata, named Mr. Blue Sky, complete with beak made from a La Croix box. She says being part of the Mutant Piñata Show is a great feeling, especially seeing her work hanging alongside "so many amazing pieces."(Photo by Stina Sieg)

Cindy Krogh holds her "rabbit bird," flanked by her granddaughter, Amelie Satterly, and daughter, Shannon Youso. Youso is part of the Bergamot Institute, which hosts free piñata-making parties for this show every year - including this Saturday.(Photo by Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

In "Forbidden Love," a mermaid (who looks to be married), embraces an octopus.(Photo by Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

Every year, the Mutant Piñata Show has about 100 entries. Here are a few from teenagers. By the time the show opens, every piece will have its own, special spot in the gallery, which will transform into a colorful, community-created crazy quilt.(Photo by Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

One of the things that makes the Mutant Piñata Show stand out is its diversity. Anyone can enter - and have their work shown - from children to professional artists, including Julia Ludders.(Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

Logan Brendan and his mom, Krista, put together an alien piñata during the free workshop hosted by Bergamot Institute.(Photo by Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

Peter Turrey, a 9th grader at New School for the Arts and Academics, had never made a piñata before. The 15-year-old says he chose Stewie from the show "Family Guy" because "that fool is cool."(Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

Jessica Johnson, a 16-year-old junior at New School for the Arts and Academics, says her seahorse mutant is some kind of GMO-ed creature. She says art is a good way of expressing yourself, regardless of how experienced you are.(Photo by Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

Tristan Craig, a 15-year-old sophomore at New School for Arts and Academics, made this melting Po because his mom loves "Teletubbies." Like some of the piñatas at the show, this one might sit on the floor or on a table.(Photo by Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

Every year, the show is a mixture of wildly different ideas. You might recognize this toothy character from the movie "Beetlejuice."(Photo by Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

The Mutant Piñata Show has a new home this year, Weird Garden, at 1008 N. 15th Ave. Its hours are 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, March 16; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, March 17-18; and from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, April 7. (Photo by Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

Every year, Moore tries to get as many piñatas as possible, and encourages everyone dropping them off, no matter what their piñata looks like.(Photo by Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

Mutant Piñata Show founder Beatrice Moore, here with her own ornate giraffe, wanted to create an art show with no barrier to entry, where everyone would feel welcome. The show is now in its 11th year.(Stina Sieg - KJZZ)

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